Though often referred to as a musical, Passing Strange is more than that. It cold be called an autobiography/memoir/meditation accompanied by musical interludes eliding with moments of comedy and tragedy. There is a lot of that going around of late (see Bruce Springsteen on Broadway). I had seen the original on Broadway where book and lyric writer Stew (he shares composition credit with Heidi Rodewald) also told his story on stage. I did not know how such a work of self-confession would work without its confessor on stage. Ten minutes into the production at The Wilma Theater in Philadelphia, I realized that my worries were without warrant.
The Wilma’s presentation establishes that Passing Strange was not a piece that could thrive only with its original cast but as a seminal and innovative piece of new American theatre that belongs in the same movement with Hamilton and Hadestown. Indeed, it feels more necessary now than it did in its initial run. The clear parallels with james Baldwin’s story land with greater force as the novelist/essayist has returned to the spotlight in our current discourse. When it arrived in 2008, it was at a moment of hope. Now, here in 2018, the spirit of liberation becomes more emphatic, more urgent. American culture is no longer “the white experience”, despite what the Administration is trying to promulgate through its reactionary policies and politics, and Passing Strange articulates that new societal reality.
Director Tea Alagić has assembled a powerful ensemble cast. The elation and, in the end, painful dawning self-realization of its protagonist that comes with the journeys of Youth (a compelling Jamar Williams leaving his fingerprints on the role) through punk-rock Europe still lands with its concluding tragic punch. The final reckoning too between Youth and Narrator (Kris Coleman who releases his anger in measured proportions), his older self, found new and dramatic dimensions as Coleman was more part of the action while when Stew did the role he was stuck to one place because of his instrumental duties.
Coleman and Williams create electricity between them in their two-hander moments. They have able support from the rest of the cast. Lindsay Smiling is wonderfully loopy in everything he does. Savannah L. Jackson and Tasha Marie Canales portray the various women with whom Youth has romantic/sexual encounters. Their prickliness and ennui allows them to tell their own stories rather than being ancillary to his story. Anthony Martinez-Briggs, whom I had seen in Flashpoint Theater’s Hands Up, successfully mines every line for its comedic possibilities. Kimberly S. Fairbanks conveys an entire life in her scenes as Mother, and she infuses her final conversation with Youth with such elegiac anticipation; her voice belongs to the angels.
The Wilma space serves the work well, allowing Alagić to paint her canvas with the language and music of the piece, the acting, and some strategic use of video in service of setting of time and place.
I have only recently begun to explore Philadelphia theatre (Arden, Lantern, etc.), and, late in the game, I have come to the Wilma. I have been pleasantly surprised by this exploration and, with Passing Strange, have come to appreciate the City of Brotherly Love as a place with a rich theatrical life.
More information by the show can be found here: https://www.wilmatheater.org